“That’s a new approach,” she said in her bored, high-toned voice. “I’ll pass your message to him.”
Even after all these years, Susan recognized his voice with no trouble. “This is Susan Wren,” she said.
“Yes?” His voice was cool, approaching Siberian borders. She didn’t know if it was because he didn’t recognize her or because he did. Oh, hell, why did she use that name? Of course, he didn’t recognize it.
Nervously, she cleared her throat. “Susan Donovan.”
There was dead silence on the other end of the line. Maybe he didn’t want to talk to her, maybe he was still angry.
“The thud you heard,” he said, “was my mouth dropping. This is the time for some devastatingly clever remark, but damned if I can think of one. Damned if I can think, actually. How long has it been?”
“Ten years.”
“Didn’t I stomp out saying something embarrassing like you’ll regret this?”
“Something like that.”
There was an awkward silence.
“Jesus. Susan. Could you call back tomorrow? Give me time to work up some great lines?”
“Same old Just. Too much class to ask right out, What the hell do you want? You think I called for something deplorable like Mel Gibson’s autograph.”
He laughed. “You would never be so mundane.”
There was another silence.
“To get this conversation rolling, fill me in on the last ten years.” He sounded so Hollywood, she would have laughed, except she was afraid it might sound too high-pitched. “Aw, come on,” he urged. “To make it easier, pretend like you’re giving me a pitch for a new sitcom.”
“Well, the night after graduation—”
“Not scene by scene. Just give me the story line.”
“I thought you should see motivation to get the essence—”
“Nobody in the Industry talks about essence. We deal strictly in T and A or violence. You got married?”
“You connect violence with marriage?”
“Ex-wife number one did. But not till we got into the divorce.”
“How many wives have there been?”
“Only two. The second was very civilized about the divorce.”
“Children?”
“Let me think. Yeah. Two, I believe, the first time and one the next time. Does that make three? With a little more thought I could give you their ages. It gets confusing because the ex-wives came with their own. When you jumble them together, you have a hard time remembering which ones are which. You said you were married.”
“Yes.”
“He died?” Just asked softly.
“How did you know?”
“I still know you. You froze when I asked about marriage. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. Actually, I called for a reason.”
He gave a theatrical sigh. “Not just to talk over old times? Are you still one of those”—he lowered his voice and spoke like a broadcaster—“men and women in law enforcement.”
“I’m the chief of police.”
“No shit? Congratulations. That’s terrific. Not San Francisco, or I would have heard.”
“Hampstead, Kansas.”
“Where?”
She laughed, then told him about Lethal Promise being filmed in Hampstead. “I called for information: fact, fiction, conjecture, and gossip. Do you know the director Hayden Fifer?”
“Everybody knows who he is, of course.”
“Of course.”
He laughed. “Was that a nasty crack?”
“No. Well, maybe a small one.” It was difficult talking with a long-ago lover and she suddenly had more sympathy for Parkhurst. You fell right back into the old patterns and then you remembered. What a mess. She shouldn’t have called. “Do you know anything about this movie?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. I was involved at the beginning on behalf of some of the moneylenders. Big budget film that keeps getting more and more over the huge budget it started with. A not-very-original script. A thriller–love story about a beautiful sophisticated woman who came from farming stock. Her father, the farmer who has some poetic affinity for the wonderfulness of the land and growing things on it, is killed. Woman finds out an evil agribusiness is destroying local flora and fauna by whatever destroys these things—unsafe and unlawful pesticides probably. Evil agribusiness types have to kill her too. She goes to local law enforcement who say she’s nuts. Except for one guy who doesn’t really believe her, but falls in love with her. She gets hunted down, chased, shot at, a gratuitous car chase or two. Somewhere she realizes the land, or maybe it’s the prairie—I forget—is a sacred trust and must be preserved. The bad guys are about to win. The local cop risks life, limb, and career to save her. End on a romancy shot which suggests happily ever after.”
“Romantic walks through the wheat fields?”
“It’s probably in there somewhere. I only hit the high spots. Or maybe it’s horseback rides through the meadows.”
“Is it a good movie?”
“Depends what you mean by good. Will it be intellectually stimulating, full of socially significant questions with or without answers? No. But it should be exciting, funny, moving, and—above all—entertaining. That’s the kind of film Fifer does. His last two weren’t successes, so he has a lot riding on this. The man himself—”
“What are you thinking? Anything might help.”
“For a hotshot director, Fifer has a reputation for being anxious. He’s known for his retakes, and not keeping track of dollars. With so much riding on this movie, I’d say he must be really anxious and ready to do anything to make it work. Three or four marriages, the usual.”
“How did he come to direct this film?”
“Two reasons. Laura Edwards and Nick Logan. Both top of the heap big box office. They have a love affair that’s been given much play. Investors were elbowing each other out of the way to get in line.”
“Is Laura Edwards good?”
“Have you read a paper in the last five years? Don’t they have movies there? Yes, she’s good, but she has a tendency to overemote. The director needs to sit on her, make her do what he wants.”
“Personal life?”
“Actors—the big ones—don’t have a personal life. The public wants to know when she eats, where she frolics on the beach, and who she sleeps with. She’s been married a couple of times. Once, come to think of it, to some hometown boy.”
She wondered what Parkhurst would think of being referred to as a hometown boy.
“… childhood sweetheart, or something. Married a pennyweight agent whose name escapes me. I’ll bet he drinks himself to sleep every night for letting her get away. He never had or ever will have somebody of her stature. The usual scandals about happily married male throws away wife and family for her. National Enquirer stuff.”
“Nick Logan?”
“He can act. The viewing public may not know it because he isn’t doing Shakespeare or Ibsen.”
“Why isn’t he, if he’s good?”
“Money, darling.”
“Rumor, gossip, innuendo?”
“He gives the impression he’s an easygoing man, but he’s got a temper like a killer bee. He’s pushed around a few media people. Smashed cameras. Doesn’t like to hear the word no. Got a divorce to engage in the romance with Laura.”
“His wife upset?”
“It’s all very civilized here. We’re all still good friends who love each other. She’s a model, says the accepted thing, it wasn’t working out, she still loves him.”
His voice faded and she heard Ms. British Secretary in the background, saying Mr. Anklet was asking how long it would be.
Justin said, “Tell him I’ll be right with him.”
“You have a client waiting?”
“Naw. I just told Phoebe to say that so you’d be impressed. Are you impressed?”
“Is his name really Anklet?”
“He’s changing it from Bracelet. Wha
t do you think?”
“I think you haven’t changed. Your kids must find you a riot.”
“They’re great. When can you come meet them?”
“Next time I come to L.A. Right now there’s an art director I want to ask you about.”
* * *
Yancy’s rib began to pinch a little as he tromped around base camp. He was telling himself to go home, uneasiness was for movie heroes. Hear that? I don’t hear anything, it’s quiet. Yeah, too quiet.
He was headed over to his squad car before he realized it wasn’t quiet. The air conditioning in Laura Edwards’s trailer gave out a monotonous hum. She could have neglected to turn it off. If so, it was apt to overload and give out.
Her town car was gone, all the vehicles were gone except the van belonging to security. Yancy knocked on the trailer door. He knocked louder, at the risk of disturbing the female star, if she were inside and busy, like getting it off with a dear friend. Nick Logan’s car was also gone, but who knew.
No answer. The air conditioning droned away. He tracked down the security guy. “You know if Laura Edwards is still in her trailer?”
“Not to my knowledge. Far as I know nobody here but me and my partner.”
Yancy would have thought it was his job to know these things.
“What’re you doing here?” the guard asked.
Wandering around when I should be home. “The air conditioning’s on. That happen often?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“You got a key for these trailers?” Yancy asked.
“You think they’d just hand out keys to Laura Edwards’s trailer? You been smoking something funny?”
With the guard dogging his heels, Yancy checked every trailer, all quiet and locked.
“You report in at certain times?” Yancy asked.
“Sure. Every two hours. I have an hour and a half to go.”
“Call your boss. Let me talk to him.”
“I can’t do that.”
Yancy rubbed a knuckle up and down his forehead. “You see this uniform? See any difference between yours and mine? Right. If it helps you any, you can say I’ve got you at gun point.”
The guard sighed, to show he wasn’t doing this willingly, took the cell phone from its holster and punched a number. Yancy was beginning to be a believer in cell phones; they surely were handy.
The security guy handed it over to him. Yancy explained his problem.
“You might have a problem, but I don’t. Maybe she wants it cool when she comes in,” and hung up.
Maybe he was right. Go home. Yancy went to the Sunflower instead.
“Howie, I’m looking for Ms. Edwards. Is she in her room?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Put me through to her room.”
“We’re not supposed to—”
“Just do it, okay?”
Howie started to argue, gave it up and a few seconds later said, “There’s no answer.”
“Try Nick Logan.”
No answer there either. They probably went out together. Oh hell, forget it. He took the elevator to the fourth floor and rapped on the door of Ms. Edwards’s suite, then he tried Nick Logan’s.
He was overreacting here. There was no reason Ms. Edwards had to be in her suite, or answer phones or knocks even if she was in. He went back down the elevator and hiked along the corridor to the coffee shop.
“One?” The waitress was a college student with an inviting summer smile.
“I’m looking for someone?”
“Who?”
“Famous movie stars.”
“They’re not here.” She waved her arm to indicate the almost empty room.
He could see that. He checked out the Patio; nobody there either. In the lobby, he left a message with Howie to have Mac call him, then headed for the department to turn in the squad car and pick up his Cherokee.
If the Lieutenant or Osey had been in, Yancy might have mentioned it to them. Might have. Even he was beginning to think he was stirring up a bunch of nothing. He took himself home.
Stephanie was sitting on the steps looking morose.
“Hi, Steph.” He sat next to her. “What’s the matter?”
“I wish I were older.”
“Why? Thirteen’s a good age.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m sorry. Tell me what your problem is.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I might. You could give me a try.”
She drew up her long legs and rested her chin on one knee. “Do you like living here?”
“Sure,” he said, wondering where this was going.
“You think you could like my mother?”
“I do like her.”
“You know what I mean.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Steph.”
“How does it work?”
“Poets have been writing about it forever, right?”
“She’s older than you are anyway,” Stephanie said glumly. “She’s overprotective. If she had somebody else to focus on, she wouldn’t sit on me so much.”
“What is it you want to do that she won’t let you?”
“Have you teach me to shoot a gun.”
Oh. He wasn’t surprised Mrs. Blakely wouldn’t allow it. She was totally against firearms.
“Could you ask her for me?” Stephanie asked.
“Oh, Steph, I don’t know about that.”
“See, I told you you wouldn’t understand.”
Upstairs, he phoned Mac, who didn’t know where Ms. Edwards was. She’d dismissed him earlier this afternoon.
“She told you she didn’t need you?”
“That’s right. Why?”
“She told you herself? Didn’t ask one of her flunkies to tell you?”
“Her assistant. What are you getting at?”
“Probably nothing.” Yancy hung up and rubbed the back of his neck. He was getting all worked up over air-conditioning. Ms. Edwards might claim all sorts of concern about the environment, but when it came to her own comfort, she might not give a damn, like the guard said, left it on so the trailer would be cool when she came back.
He sat in the overstuffed chair, untied a shoelace, and slipped off the shoe. He hesitated, blew out a gust of air, and put the shoe back on.
“Got a date?” Stephanie asked as he trotted down the steps.
“Cop stuff.”
“Take me along. Maybe I can help.”
“You’d be bored. I’m just going to check out the mansion.”
Another waste of time, he figured, but he was making sure Ms. Edwards wasn’t on a set working with Nick on a scene before he laid this in Osey’s lap and listened to Osey laugh.
The place was locked up tight. He walked the outside perimeter, nothing out of the way. Locusts were warming up for the evening. A red-tailed hawk made lazy circles in the blue sky. His rib was beginning to remind him it didn’t like all this activity.
Okay, that’s it, go home.
He tramped around toward the squad car, then looked over at the stables. Oh, hell, being this far, he might as well give a look there too. Gravel crunched under his feet as he followed the path.
He slid back a door and stared right into the barrel of an old Colt .45.
30
“You couldn’t mind your own business.”
He couldn’t, and that was a fact. Nor was he totally surprised to see who was pointing a revolver at him.
Another thing he couldn’t do was draw his eyes from the barrel. It wasn’t steady. It downright wavered. Nerves wriggled in his chest like a sackful of garter snakes. Stomach muscles tensed in a futile attempt to deflect a bullet. His rib didn’t bother him a bit.
“Help me!” Laura Edwards, hanging with hands cuffed to a metal ring affixed to the wall, twisted and struggled. She still had on the leather pants and vest she’d worn for the filming earlier.
“Come on,” Yancy said. “Don’t do this. Give me the gun.”<
br />
“Shut up!”
“Let her go.”
“Shut UP!”
“Okay.” He held his hands up, palms forward.
“Take out your gun. Slowly! Lay it on the floor.” The barrel of the .45 nuzzled up against Laura’s neck. “Do it! I’ll shoot her.”
Laura, face white, eyes wide with fear, froze.
Fancy thoughts tumbled through his mind. Draw and fire. Movie-style stuff. Laura’d be dead before his finger reached the trigger. “Okay. Stay calm. What are you doing? Tell me what’s going on.” Gingerly, he laid down his gun. This was the second one he’d given up. If he lived through this, he’d never live it down.
“Step away from it.”
He took one step to the side.
The .45 gestured.
He took another. Laura whimpered.
“Now your radio.”
He hesitated.
“Do it!”
He unclipped the two-way radio from his shoulder and set it on the floor.
“Take it easy now,” he said.
The .45 boomed like a cannon.
31
“He left his wife to be with Laura and the wife killed herself in the best movie tradition,” Justin said.
“I believe you have cleared up a very puzzling homicide.” Susan shifted the phone receiver to her other ear.
“You mean all that was true about murder investigations? It wasn’t just a ploy to get me interested?”
The irritating click-click of an incoming call broke in, she asked Justin if he could hold a second.
The call was dispatch. “Yancy just requested backup.”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Too much static interference.”
She better send somebody up to check that birds weren’t sitting on the communications tower again.
“I couldn’t make out more than who was calling before there was a gunshot.”
“Where is he?”
“Unknown. Osey’s going out to scout.”
“Tell him to pick me up. Stat.” She got back to Justin. “Thanks,” she said. “I have to go, something’s come up.”
“Hey, you’re not going to leave me hanging, are you? The least you could do is let me know what this is all about.”
Murder Take Two Page 27